As the first CAPS Fellow to officially start her placement, I am already entering my third week at my placement site. I work at Heartland Alliance Refugee and Immigrant Community Services under their Resettlement & Placement department in Chicago, which works with refugees and immigrants during their first 90 days in the country. I entered the experience 3 weeks ago both excited and nervous to work with a population I have never worked with before, and in not knowing completely what to expect, I tried my best to keep my mind open.
On day 1, I was already diving in head-first. Within the first half hour, I was on my way to visiting a refugee’s home with my supervisor to make sure they felt properly accommodated. By day 4, I was conducting these home visits on my own, without supervision. The general pace and dynamic of the office seems to be “Do first, learn after.” My supervisor would send me on errands with the refugees – such as applying for food stamps and social security cards, obtaining a State ID, and teaching them the public transit routes – with little to no prior instruction, and then sit down with me to debrief and teach me the process. Hands-on is my favorite way to learn, and I love not having to sit at a desk all day, but even the people most fit for this kind of work would find it overwhelming at first. I’ll spend three hours with a Syrian refugee family resolving their State ID processing issues at the DMV and be greeted at the door upon my return by a young Burmese man who needs to be taken to the bank immediately to open a bank account. Most of my tasks are stacked directly on top of each other, and they sometimes even overlap.
The fast pace is definitely overwhelming at first, yet the most difficult aspect of this position, I’ve learned, is the language barrier. Refugees come to us speaking languages I’ve never even heard of before starting at Heartland: Rohingya, Tigrinya, Oromo, and so on. We have translators available in the office and over the phone, but speaking through a translator in itself is an art form that takes practice. Even speaking English now takes much more thought and deliberation; I must make sure I am speaking clearly and slowly enough for a refugee who speaks little English to understand, and I have to catch myself from using American figures of speech that they may not recognize. It has definitely reinforced the fact that having foreign language experience is crucial in this field (I suppose it’s common sense, but now I’ve experienced it first-hand). I’m trying to learn common words and phrases in each major language used by our participants, and I plan to take some foreign language classes as electives when I start graduate school in the fall.
Despite all of the overwhelming pace, stress, and sometimes frustration of the position, I come home every evening feeling a sense of fulfillment. All of my energy may be spent, but I know I spent it on directly helping and supporting a population that needs it desperately, especially in the current political climate. I think back to the many heartwarming experiences I’ve had so far – when an Eritrean refugee considered me enough of a friend to share with me his poetry and songs about his horrible experiences before escaping, when a Syrian woman tried to teach me Arabic and spent the whole train ride home telling me about Ramadan while her husband took my hand and smiled in gratitude for my company, when a Burmese family invited me to sit on their only couch and offer me hospitality while the 4-year-old daughter shouted the English words she knew with a smile – that make it all worth it. I know I have a purpose to dedicate my life in service to God’s most vulnerable children, and although I’m not convinced that this exact line of work is for me, I know that this summer, I am doing the work God has called me to do. I look forward to all of the growing and learning yet to come. Now that I am (finally) not alone in the city anymore and almost all of the other Chicago CAPS Fellows have arrived, I am excited to do that growing and learning alongside a community of peers that truly feel like home. Here’s to an amazing rest of the summer!